This paper offers a reconceptualisation of international students' transitions into and through UK higher education. We present two case studies of students which explore their transitions in terms of their academic speaking skills from pre-sessional courses into their disciplinary studies. Students describe how the development of their confidence…

Globalisation has made English a dominant language both in education and in manpower recruitment worldwide. Due to globalisation and Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia which enhanced the involvement of Saudi youth in the work force, the study of English language, especially English for Specific Purposes (ESP), has become increasingly important in the…

In this paper I make the case for embedding oracy practices in the HE curriculum through explicit teaching of oracy skills and a shared common language to describe these skills. Active learning and teaching approaches as well as growing expectations of graduate employability skills have resulted in greater demands on students in UK higher…

A much under-researched issue in higher education is the extent to which English-medium university courses help students improve their English proficiency in an ESL context. Adopting a longitudinal, mixed methods design in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, the current study tracked English language improvement,…

This study explored the benefits and drawbacks of synchronous voice-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) in a blended course of English for specific purposes. Quantitative and qualitative data from two groups following the same syllabus, except for the oral component, were compared. Oral tasks were carried out face-to-face with same L1…

A test was constructed to measure a person's ability to produce Spanish sounds which are considered difficult but which must be mastered for fluency in Spanish. The test was used with learners from kindergarten to college. It was consensually validated by a panel of bilingual specialists after analyzing it according to contrastive analysis…

Divided into two sections, this report describes research on the range and degree of assessment of students' communication skills in colleges and universities and includes the following findings: (1) of the 384 respondents from college speech communication departments, 45 reported using large-scale, uniform testing of students; (2) these…

A study compared the results of administration of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing Service (ACTFL/ETS) oral proficiency interview and those of two laboratory-administered Modern Language Association tests, one in the listening mode and one in the speaking mode. The comparative study was undertaken to…

This study examined the efficacy of utilizing a learner centered approach in combination with a curriculum built upon video materials within a Taiwanese university English as a Second Language classroom. It investigated how the combination of these two teaching methods would affect students' motivation, listening performance, oral performance, and…

A guide to good lecturing is presented for medical school teachers. It is suggested that the first step in encouraging active listening is to fulfill a clearly stated purpose. The lecturer is advised to ask the following questions: What is the listener supposed to know as a result of the lecture? What is the listener supposed to feel, value, or…

A packet of three speech assessment instruments has been organized to assist classroom teachers in creating instructional programs that provide adequate oral/aural language experiences for their students. The Koziol-Cercone Assessment of Speaking Skills judges student ability to orally communicate the content of a message. The Koziol-Cercone…

The Oral Communication Competencies Assessment Project was designed to determine student communication competency across the curriculum, transferring skills taught in the communication skills class to authentic classroom performances. The 505 students who were required to make oral presentations across the curriculum during the first term of the…

A study was planned to generate a model for testing second language education that would incorporate task types to allow the display of fluency. It is argued that the display of oral fluency can be used as a selection criterion for inclusion of test items in multitask or portfolio assessment. The following three research questions were formulated:…

A Hong Kong college instructor in English for academic purposes (EAP) describes the process of revising an instructional module designed for students involved in the building trades. The three-step curriculum development process included (1) personal reflection and solicitation of student perceptions; (2) need analysis and development of a new…

A study investigated how students of English as a second language (ESL) improved their use of learning strategies through awareness-raising in group interviews and informal training. Subjects were 68 Taiwanese university students in two freshman English classes. Subjects responded to an English learning strategy questionnaire in the beginning and…